Generally, a vehicle body comprises a BIW (Body In White) which is composed of various panels formed using a press and welded together. The panels include a side panel, a roof panel, a door panel, and a fender panel. The panels go through an automatic loading process prior to being fed to and stored in a palette. Next, the panels are supplied to a welding line and welded by a welding robot, thus forming a finished vehicle body. A working robot transfers the panels from the pressing process to the automatic loading process or the welding process. A jig is mounted to one arm of the working robot for gripping the panels.
The panel gripping jig is typically a vacuum-sucking-type jig or a clamp-type jig. In order to carry various sizes and shapes of panels, various jigs must be provided. Further, a vacuum-sucking-type jig operates smoothly only when the surface of a panel is flat. Meanwhile, a conventional clamp-type jig is problematic in that the panel must be provided with a seating surface for clamping.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.